The BIG Pot

We decided to make the two beds in the back flowerbeds.  Flowers attract bees, butterflies and if you are lucky, hummingbirds.  These are good to have around to pollinate your fruits, veggies and herbs.

My hubby found a HUGE pot that he paid a minimal price for.  He thought it would look nice in the middle of one of the flowerbeds with a Mexican lime tree in it.  We set out to make it happen.  It turned out to be a nice focal point of the garden.  Of course Kepler was right in the thick of it all.

I decided in July it was time to give up until the temperature dropped and we got some rain.  I didn’t think it would take so long, but by September it started to drop under 100 degrees during the day and we got a little rain.  I decided to plant my winter garden.

I planted acorn squash, fava beans, beets, turnips, swiss chard & cabbage.   I also decided to plant some flowers in the back beds.  They seemed to like the cooler weather.  I planted zinnias, morning glories, marigolds and a hummingbird and butterfly mix.   

A few days after I planted the flower seeds, we finally got a hard rain and most of the seeds washed into the brick path.  I decided to leave them and plant more in the bed.  We now have a nice crop of flowers growing in the walkway.

Spring 2011

I started my garden in the Spring of 2011.  Thinking  this would be the ideal time, I went by the book on what to plant and when to plant it.  Burpee has a great growing calendar that you can customize to your zip code.  It can help you decide which crops are best to plant in your area at any given time of the year.

http://www.burpee.com/

I also used the Farmers Almanac online to help with which days are best to plant and when it is best to do maintenance in your garden.

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/

What I didn’t know was 2011 would be one of the hottest, driest on record in South Texas!

We did get a few very small tomatoes, eggplant, serrano peppers and cucumbers from the effort.  I made most of the cucumbers into pickles for my Mom. I figure they cost about $20 a jar with the amount of water it took to keep the cucumbers alive.  

Everything else I planted was incinerated by the sun with the exception of a few sunflowers and the squirrels had a great time eating those.

One good thing did come out of all of this.  I was able to train Kepler to chase away the squirrels and birds on command.  He makes a great scarecrow and takes his job very seriously.

Notice the squirrel climbing up the fence.

It's in the Bag

I decided to create a raised garden by double stacking bricks and removing six inches of the existing dirt.  The ground here is very hard and rocky and vegetables do not grow well.

We then partitioned into six “mini-beds” and proceeded to fill the beds with garden soil. This worked out nicely in theory, but I had no idea of the cost of filling the beds with decent soil. 

I had heard that you can get a truckload of garden soil cheap, but you really need a pickup for that sort of thing and we have two cars.  I decided to just start buying a few bags at a time as I had the money. At this point, I still have two beds waiting for soil.  The garden is still very much a work in progress.

You may notice that the beds are not exactly level.  I know they look a little like a garden from a Tim Burton movie, but there is a reason.  If you live in the burbs, you may be familiar with easements.  Basically, this is an area where there are utility lines buried.  In our case, some of them were not buried.  You can see one of them in the second photo in my April 14, 2012 post (the orange cord) Lucky for us, Kepler was never interested in chewing on it.

To make a long story short, it is not wise to build anything you are not willing to have destroyed in the event the utility company needs to get to their lines.  We decided not to go through all the work of leveling it off, just to have it all torn up.  I actually prefer the less structured feel.

The BrickYard 2000

We originally had all of the bricks stacked against the fence to keep our dog Kepler, a White German Sheppard – Chihuahua mix from digging out. 

Pic above: You can see a stack of bricks at the top of the photo.

This worked well, but it also made a nice condo for snakes and lizards to raise a family.

We decided to lay the brick out on the back half of our yard.  The builder neglected to tell us that the one pallet of grass that came with the purchase of the house was not enough for the entire yard.  So the bricks really helped with the mud problem we had and gave us

a place to put our grill and patio furniture.  

Pic above: My Dad and Kepler catching some rays.

I also had a few herbs and veggies in pots; cilantro, parsley, heirloom cherry tomatoes, white eggplant and Serrano peppers.  We had a nice crop of cilantro, parsley and Serrano peppers. 

The tomatoes were few and far between but we harvested many small, tasty white eggplant.

The Serrano pepper plant is the sole survivor from that first year.  The peppers it produces have the most wonderful floral note to them.  I have given several of the seeds to friends who have requested them after tasting the fruit.

In the beginning….

I decided to work on building a garden about two years ago.  My husband is an Artist and he is very good at finding random items various places that he hopes will one day be of use.  This is very fortunate for me.

Our neighborhood is a fairly new one.  There were multiple homes being built at the same time as ours.  To most people, this is a time of being annoyed at the fact that you have banging hammers all day and construction trash piled up everywhere.  To my husband, this time was seen as a very big opportunity.

We were fortunate enough to have our new home being built right next the lot that held the Forman’s office (trailer) for the builder.  My hubby being the friendly guy he is, struck up a conversation with the Foreman about all of the construction trash in the lot next to our home.  Much to our surprise, it was destined for the landfill.  So, my sweetie asks if we can pick through it and the guy said “sure, that is less we have to have hauled off.”  That is all we had to hear!

We spent the next few months moving about 2000 bricks into the backyard.  We were not sure at the time what we would do with them, but we thought we would find a use for them.